Burda, Burda, Burda. Such nice looking in the pattern books, and so damn difficult to actually finish. This sweatshirt is my first attempt at sewing in a little while. I have been so frustrated trying to finish (or to be more accurate “move forward”) on my Burda jacket I have been having a hard time getting motivated to start something new.

While at Bolt a couple of weeks back, I saw this lovely Italian (and I mean Italian in that italics way denoting some sort of exaggerated coolness, like Italian Sports Car) microfiber fleece a very nice charcoal color. Anyway, this fabric is incredibly soft and is double sided with a sueded looking front and a fuzzy back. I had bought this Burda 7981 “Sporty Ensemble” (yes, that’s the name Burda gave this particular pattern) sometime back at one of the $2.49 pattern sales and I love the quarter zipped shirt in most forms, including sweaters and sweatshirts.

As far as constructing this little beauty it came together rather well and with only one major surprise. Here’s the picture from Burda’s web site. Maybe you’ll figure out what’s weird about this pattern faster than I did.

The fit is really nice and euro snug (basically slim fit) and it has a structured look missing from a lot of men’s sportswear patterns out there.

The one problem we had was with the zipper, and I am going to let Sarah have a go at explaining what happened, because she had to bail me out on this point.

So if you take a close look at that picture, you can see that there’s something odd about the design. What Burda’s done is add an “interesting design element” to this sweatshirt pattern. That design element? Everything’s backward! Yes, the seams are on the OUTSIDE of the garment. So are the zippers. It would have been helpful if either Josh or I had noticed this “interesting design element” from the outset. We didn’t. So, as you can imagine the zipper instructions were quite perplexing for newbie sewer Josh. I parachuted into this project, never having done a quarter zip top before, and following Burda’s detailed instruction on this zip, thinking that I was somehow making a facing, so of like you do for an invisible zipper. I wasn’t. When all was said and done, the zipper was indeed on the outside of the shirt. I went on a minor rant about this, and referred to my trusty Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Sewing (which I should have done in the first place—Doh!) and figured out how to do it correctly. I performed some fairly significant surgery on the zipper and managed to reattach it the right way. It’s amazing it looks all presentable. After this nightmare scenario I was ready to blast Burda for having backward instructions for a zipper. I hate to blast them for creating an idiotic look, because they’re the only ones who do anything even marginally interesting in terms of men’s patterns. So, I’ll just say that I don’t get the inside-out look.~S

I was looking online for a pattern photo to use for this post and happened to take a closer look at the picture on Burda’s site. So it turns out that the whole entire pattern, as is quite evident from the picture we’ve included, is supposed to be inside out. This is not particularly apparent in the pattern instructions.

This color should make me blend right into the Oregon winter (or rainy season if you prefer). The sun can’t come quick enough!

Despite the stress of making this thing, now that I know what’s going on with this pattern, I can see myself making a bunch of these. I really like this type of sweater/sweatshirt things, and I could adjust the collar to being a bit less large for a sweater knit-type thing.

Thanks to my lovely wife for taking some bad-ass (in a good way) pictures of me in front of a bright orange Dumpster. It sort of brighten up the greyness of the last many days here.

~Josh

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